SEO Basics Part 6 Tracking & Measuring

How do you measure your website?

Now that you have all of your SEO work put into motion, how do you exactly measure it and know that it’s working?

The question seems straightforward, but, unfortunately, has a bit of a tough answer to it, but no worries that’s what I’m here for. I will do everything I possibly can to make this short and sweet without leaving out information.

What are Website Analytics

Website analytics provides you key information about your website’s visitors. Some of the information that analytics tools that can provide you is

How many visitors came to the site

Are they new or returning?

What devices did they use?

Geographic locations

Times visited

Pages visited

how they got there (organic search, paid ads, social media, etc.)

and more…

What are Some Analytics Tools & How Much do they cost?

There are a lot of different analytics tools available in the market. Some are free, yes that is right FREE. Some, you have to pay for. For this guide, I’m going to be showing you how to use Google Analytics. The way you get access to Google analytics is by going to http://www.Google.com/analytics . Google analytics is a free tool which provides you a lot of data. If you want to explore other tools here are a few tools that are free and paid.

Piwik (piwik.com)

Mint (HaveAMint.com)

Yahoo Web Analytics (web.analytics.yahoo.com)

Compete (compete.com)

CloudFlare (CloudFlare.com)

Setting up Google Analytics

Register for Google Analytics: Please note that you will HAVE to have a Gmail account. Why? I don’t know that’s how Google will control the world someday, but you still have to have one.

Click on “Get Tracking ID”, you will get a pop-up box that says you have to agree to Google’s terms and conditions. Click on “I Accept”. Read them first though, just so you know.

Tracking Code: You will now get access to the tracking code ID. Copy and paste this code into a notepad document or somewhere safe. Don’t worry you can always get access to this information again by going to Admin -> .js Tracking info -> tracking code.

Placing the code into your website: If you have WordPress, and I’m sure you do since you’re following this series of guides so well. All you have to do is log into your website and click on “Plugins” and find

Once you have installed it, you will find it under “Settings” -> “Google Analytics”. Place the UA-XXXXXX code that you got from Google analytics and click on “Save Changes”. That’s it! To access your analytics information, just go to Google.com/analytics and you will pick the site you’re monitoring.

Keyword Rankings

At this point you’re probably wondering how the heck you track your keywords and, how much traffic is generated from it. Well, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but a few years back (depending on when you’re reading this), Google stopped providing the keywords that visitors used to come to your website. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Alex, how the heck can I track this now!”. Okay, so there is a semi solution.

What I like to do is find out which pages my visitors are coming in from organically. This tells me a few things. If the keyword is being searched or at least a series of keywords and if the content I’m writing actually has value in Google’s eyes. If the reader stays and continues to another page, well then that’s a plus and another blog post.

One way you can actually track your keyword rankings is by using MOZ OR Advanced Web Ranking (https://www.advancedwebranking.com/). I actually love both tools and use them pretty much on a daily basis. Each has its perks.

Organic Traffic

When you are looking for traffic, especially to measure your SEO results, then you want to read the Organic Traffic data. Go to the “Audience ” -> “Overview” tab on the left. At the very top you will see a place that says “All Sessions”. Click on “All Sessions” , a drop down will open up.

Remove the check mark next to “All Sessions” and then scroll down and locate “Organic Traffic”. Check the box next to “Organic Traffic” and click on Apply. Now you will see all the results of your SEO efforts.

Please note that you can drill down into specific pages by going to Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages. There are a lot of other ways to do this as well, but this is probably the fastest and easiest. I know a lot of other people would tell you to set up a dashboard, but hey! These are the basics!

Organic Leads & Sales

One tip that I want to leave you with is if you have your tracking information setup. You can track how many leads you’re getting and from where. If you have the tracking information correctly setup you can go to the “Acquisitions” -> “Overview” tab and see the actual conversions.

Conclusion

I hope that this blog was helpful! Set up your analytics and you’ll know what’s happening on your website. If you found this information helpful, then please share it with your friends, family and anyone else you know that needs help.